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Earlier this month, Joanne and I had the pleasure of visiting a sister OPC denomination. I always enjoy visiting a church where I am not preaching and not known. It frees me to just “be a visitor” and observe a church from that perspective.

Like many of you, I have watched with horror, anger, and grief over the chaotic and panic-stricken scenes being broadcast from Afghanistan as the Taliban resumed power. I’m sickened by images of people falling from airplanes, young women pleading to escape expected sexual violence, and reports of parents passing their children over barbed wire fences in hopes that at least the kids might escape the fearsome regime that is surging into power. I find myself deeply saddened whenever my mind goes to our Christian brothers and sisters who have already received threatening messages and enduring violence for confessing the name of Christ.

My wife and I are thrilled to be back in the USA and at Harvest OPC to begin a new chapter of our lives. Katie (formerly Wagenmaker) is a past member of Harvest who went to Westminster Seminary California in 2006 and met a debonair, slightly balding Texan. I got my Masters of Divinity and Katie got her Masters of Arts in Theological Studies degree in 2008 and we married in 2010. I took a call as a Youth and Family pastor in Houston in the PCA where our ministry was blessed to see new converts in our youth group and young adults. We also had two of our children while there.

I love introductions. This is probably a little weird. Most people pull toward the familiar and are unsettled by meeting people, making small talk, and trying to move a conversation along with someone with whom they're not sure how much they share in common. So I recognize I'm the odd one out.